I am new to this forum and relatively new to Rose’s genius books. I’m delighted with the perfect results that I have achieved from the cake recipes that I have tried so far… not had as much luck with the pastry yet, but need to persevere.

I had a question that I hope some of you may be able to help me with. I live in the UK (but am an Aussie by birth), and I am keen to acquire a collection of Fruit Essences for buttercream use in particular. I can’t seem to find any in the UK and have considered having them posted to me by La Cuisine, but the postage will make this quite expensive. I wondered if anyone knows the brand for these essences, so that I can have a final try at sourcing them locally?

MEL~B:
Good evening to you, & welcome to our baking forum. Mel I honestly do not know what “Fruit Essence” is. My best guess is it may be like lemon extract or oil or perhaps orange or peppermint, ete???? If it is we can furnish you with websites to buy them thru catalog sales & or direct to the source.
Till then Mel good luck to you & enjoy the rest of the day.

Hi Freshkid - thank you very much for your response. You are correct - the essences that I refer to are similar to extracts I believe. Rose recommends using them in one of her passionfruit recipes (either curd or buttercream - apologies I don’t have my Cake Bible to hand). Rose lists La Cuisine as a stockist and I have looked at their website and found that they stock an amazing variety of fruit flavoured essences:

http://www.loranoils.com I do not know if you can get thru using this toll free tel # 888 456 7266. If not
The website has a choice go to customer service there you can send a E~ Mail & ask for a catalog.
Good luck in your quest & let us know how well you have done.

Thank you all for your help! I have contacted La Cuisine and am seeing whether they can ship to me when I am in the US for work next week - they are going to do their best! A trip to the US is a great opportunity to source equipment etc that is difficult to find in the UK. I’m very keen to try fruit essences with some cupcake icings that I have in mind. And also in Rose’s pasisonfruit curd. I’ll let you know how I get along. Thanks again.

To all who have used the La Cuisine fruit essences… I am preparing to purchase these but want to know how much you use for each batch of Mousseline - is it just a drop per batch? What if it’s a non-fruit Mousseline e.g. pistachio - again would that just be a drop?

L I, a bottle lasts a long time. For increasing the intensity of a buttercream or ice cream that already has fruit puree in it, one or two drops is generally sufficient, I would say five is the absolute most. The wild strawberry is my favorite, it’s really lovely! I find the peach overpowers very quickly and never use more than one drop. I haven’t used the pistachio, perhaps Hector will chime in.

I have the strawberry and the pistachio… very, very, very good stuff!!!!!!! I find the strawberry to be much more liquid. The pistachio is kind of like a paste (brownish). I’ve used them both for buttercream… the bottles lids have a bottle dropper. I usually squirt a dropper full into my buttercream. Sometimes more, sometimes less… do it to taste.

Thanks everyone. I have FINALLY ordered a variety of flavours - have waited sooo long because the shipping cost is horrific. But last weekend I made a cake with the Strawberry Mousseline and I have to say, the mousseline was aboslutely divine. I could just sit and eat the stuff (if it weren’t so fattening). Got to thinking how much better it would be with the Wild Strawberry flavouring. I am now obsessed with making a fantastic strawberry buttercream and can’t wait for the essences to arrive!

I just received Lemon Essence and Orange Essence in the mail from La Cuisine. The Lemon Essence is transparent yellow (like a lemon oil), but surprisingly the Orange Essence is opaque, thicker looking, and a dull brownish color. I might expect this of a nut essence, but not citrus - especially when compared against the lemon. Is this anyone else’s experience? Also, should I store these in the refrigerator? Thanks all!